"Thanks for coming, John," Elizabeth said as Colonel Sheppard walked into her office, rubbing a bruise on his temples. "What happened?" she asked, gesturing to his head. "Fall down some stairs?"
"Nothing so dignified," he said, "I lost twenty bucks."
"So you lost twenty dollars because you have a headache?" she asked quizzically.
"No, I lost the money because Ronon hit me on the head," he explained. "I bet Rodney twenty bucks that I could dodge Ronon's attacks for two minutes." Elizabeth could tell by the silence that followed just who had won the bet.
"How long did it last?" she asked, trying (and failing ) not to let a smile creep onto her lips.
"Fifteen seconds." He was staring at the floor. "So," he said, meeting her gaze again, "what did you want?"
"I just got an interesting communique from Stargate Command."
"Oh?"
"Oh indeed, apparently we're going to be entertaining some house guests for a while."
"House guests?" She nodded.
"Six civilian kids," she paused, reading the the report on her tablet, "and their dog will be staying on Atlantis for an indefinite amount of time." John just stared at her, flabbergasted.
"First of all," he began, "when did we start allowing kids, not to mention their pets, come to Atlantis like it's some sort of field-trip hot spot? And second, why are they coming here at all?" He paused, shaking his head, "Oh, Zalenka's going to love this."
"First of all, John," her voice riddled with authority, "these aren't just any ordinary kids. They've have almost as many people trying to kill or capture them as we've had Wraith come after us. Besides, I'm still in charge of this mission, and I don't have any problem with them coming here." She sat back in her chair with a look on her face that smugly said "Mess. With. Me.".
"So nothing I say is going to make you reconsider?" Sheppard ventured.
"Not unless you can convince General O'Neill that his idea isn't a good one." Sheppard looked stunned, then Elizabeth pointed to a signature at the bottom of the screen. "They're his orders." John sighed.
"Fine, I'll go tell everyone to break out their chocolate," then he turned and left her office. "But if they shed on my carpet," he shouted back, half kidding, "I'll personally let Ronon use them for punching bags."
Elizabeth chuckled to herself. Shed? No. Molt? Probably.
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For the record, (and you government bigwigs had better be listening), if you put us in a room with needles, beakers, the smell of Windex, and people in white lab coats, there's a pretty good chance that we're going to totally flip out. Just FYI.
I mention this because right now we are being herded into a relatively small room (With no windows mind you. Seriously, would it kill the government to put some skylights in their secret underground bunkers or something?) to have some type of physical examination before we're allowed to step foot through their precious Stargate. The space-marine escorting us (It really is cliche, but nothing else seems appropriate) said that it was standard procedure, but I knew better. For as long as I've know, all anyone has ever wanted to do with us was either kill us for interfering with their conceited, selfish, self-centered, egotistical, money grabbing plans, or try to use us in their conceited, selfish, self-centered, egotistical, money grabbing plans.
In a shining sweep of nepotism, the medical lab we were headed was run by the Generals' own daughter, Dr. Carolyn Lam, M.D. You know, it actually wasn't as bad as I though. Here, not necessarily in order, is what went on between us and the good doctor.
1. Gazzy apparently had a big crush on her, because he kept making googly eyes at her through out the whole ordeal.
2. Fang just stood there.
3. I was surprised that she wasn't throwing herself all over him like a certain other doctor we know.
4. Nudge told her that she loved her $127.95 Prada shoes she was wearing. (Don't ask me how Nudge knew that.)
5. Total just sat there, smiling and wagging his tail as she scratched behind his ears.
6. Iggy was being defensive, asking questions like "Are you going to stick me with that needle?" and Dr. Daddy's Girl acting surprise that a blind kid knew she was holding a needle.
7. Angel had played the shrink, saying something about how the doctor needed to spend more time with her father or something like that.
Eventually we were cleared and were ushered into the big room with the "Stargate" in it. You know, the one we saw from the conference room? Anyways, we'd just walked in there when five new Space Marines stepped out of the 'gate just before it shut down.
Actually, I should say four space-marines, because one of them looked more like the leatherites we saw in New York than the cookie-cutter military we usually see. And judging by the low cut shirt she was wearing she also didn't seem to have a problem with letting her chest show. She was clinging onto the arm of one of the other team members, who also didn't really seem like he should be in the military. He look more like he should be in a lecture hall than combat boots. He also looked annoyed that the woman was hanging on him like that.
You know, for that matter, only two of them actually looked like they were suppose to be here. From the pins on their uniform I could see that they were both Lt. Colonels. Major quelle coinkydink. Anyways, they both looked incredibly sure of themselves, but not to the point of smugness. Well, maybe the guy seemed a little smug, like he was about to make decision on impulse. The military madame looked more collected, like she thought things through more often.
And then there was Mr. Tall, Dark, and Beefy. Holy cow, was he big! Not "round" big, but more like "Mr. T meets Shaq big". Also, he had this weird golden tat on his forhead. As if he didn't already look like he could beat the snot out of twenty guys.
"Daniel," the lady holding his arm said in some type of British accent, "am I imagining things, or do you see six rather scruffy looking children and their pet standing there?" Oh please, we're not that scruffy looking.
"No, I see them too," the proffessor sighed.
"Oh, so you're running a daycare center now!"
"Hey," I said rather indignantly, "we can hear you over here!"
"Yeah, and we're not scruffy looking either." Remind me to give Iggy a dry laugh later.
"What's it to you?" Fang said icily.
"Oh, cheeky," the lady said, giving Fang a look that looked like she was thinking of spending a little "cozy time" with my boyfriend. Then she turned back to the rest of the team she was with, "I suppose you this is the first time you've ever had any children here?"
"Actually," the female Lt. Colonel said, "there's Cassandra."
"And there was Merrin," the proffessor said.
"As well as my son Rya'c," Muscles added.
"And the time Loki made that clone of Col. O'Neill," the other LT.C. added.
"OK, we get it," I said, "we're not the first kids to be here, and we way not be the cleanliest people in the world, but we could probably kick each of your butts into next Tuesday, so there." OK, that might've been a little childish, but it was all true. Ever since we all passed the Basic Survival Skills Training Course in Hawaii, (the BS for short), we'd pretty much proved that in a fair fight, we could stand against even the exhaustively trained, battle hardened United States military.
"It's true," Angel said matter-of-factly.
"Right, and I go home every night and play with all my cute, little teddy bears," Col. Mitchell said incredulously, eyeing Celeste. "Trust me, I know moves that most people couldn't pull off in a million years.
"You mean like this?" Fang asked, suddenly appearing behind him. OK, even I didn't see or hear him move. One minute he's standing with me and the rest of the Flock, the next he was behind an AirForce Lt. Colonel, pinning his arms behind him and dropping him to one knee.
"Alright everyone, break it up," someone said from the doorway. "Sorry I was late," he said as he hurried in, "I got caught behind a couple of lab techs rolling some heavy piece of machinery threw the hallway right in front of the elevator."
The newcomer was a slightly lower rank than the arm-locked jar-head, a captain by the pins on his jacket. He was about six feet tall and had dirty Blonde hair and blue eyes. He had a slight accent in his voice, but I couldn't really tell what it was. Though, it kind of reminded me of Mr Chu. You know, that crazy Asian guy that kidnapped my mom to get the CSM (that's Coalition to Stop the Madness) to stop speaking out against big businesses that were slowly polluting the planet. No? Well, anyways....
"Captain Nathaniel Falcone reporting for duty," he said, giving a crisp military salute. Looked down at Fang and the Colonel and smiled wryly, "Permission to take the charges off yours hands, Sir?"
"By all means, Captain," Col. Mitchell grunted from the floor. He turned his head to look at Fang, "Could you let me up now, kid?"
"Go ahead," I said with a wave of my hand, feining boredom.
"Come on, Cam," the bookworn said, helping him up, "let's go. Landry wanted to debrief us when we got back anyway." He let out a dejected sigh, "Vala, you too."
"All right," she said, looking like she didn't really get what was going on. On her way past Fang she lightly brushed her finger across his chest and winked. "See you later, Handsome," she said with a hint of promiscuity. When she was gone Fang was just standing there, dead still. Well, maybe not completely still, I think his eye was twitching.
Thank whatever gods there are in the universe she wasn't a redhead.
"Well," the Captain said after about a minute of extremely awkwerd silence, "that was interesting to say the least."
"You could say that again," Gazzy breathed, "did you see that giant? He must have been at least seven feet tall! And what was with that weird thing on his head? Did he get burned there or something? and how about that-nnffff!" Whoa, normally it's Nudge that runs her mouth off most of the time, but Gazzy really let loose this time. (And no, I don't mean one of his "unfortunate occurrences".) I probably would have decked him myself if Iggy hadn't stopped him.
"I'll tall you about it later. Meanwhile, why don't we introduce oursleves? I'm Captain Nathaniel Falcone, but you can just call me Nate."
"Pleasure to meet you, Nate," Total said from the floor. "You may call me Total."
"I'm The Awesome Karate Fist," The Gasman said, giving one of his "cool" false names he likes to use.
"I'm Precious," Angel said in the cutest possible voice she could muster. Quelle conceited much?
"My name's Caroline Estella Elizabeth Belle, the third," Nudge said, holding up three fingers to illustrate her point.
"Chester," Fang said simply.
"Oscar Mayer, but my friends call me Biff," Iggy said.
And finally the gauntlet was cast to me.
"I'm-" I started to say, trying to think up a false name for myself, when Nate suddenly cut me off.
"You're Max," he said. Then he said, "And you're Fang, Iggy, Nudge, The Gasman (Gazzy for short), and Angel," pointing each of them out in turn.
Crap, how did he know that?
"Don't look so surprised," he said, appearently noticing the stunned expersions on our faces, "I read your file. Besides, Fang calling himself by the lead singer of Linkin Park's name kind of tipped me off."
"Really?" I asked Fang. He shrugged.
"It just came to me," he said sheepishly.
"Well, now that we're all aquainted, why we get you guys to Atlantis, huh?" He started walking to the door, "Come on, the ship is this way."
"Ship," Gazzy said, hope sparkling in his eyes, "you mean as in 'Spaceship'?"
"Yep." Gazzy and Iggy both did a double high-five and then raced after him. Nudge, angel and Total follow suite, not wanting to be left behind.
Fang and I just stared at each other for a moment brofre he said, "One small step for man, right?" and hurried after them. I was only seconds behind him.
"And one giant leap for bird-kid kind."
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"Are you freaking kidding me?!" I said when I saw what the "spaceship" was that we would be flying in.
Picture a truck. Like those orange and white ones with the weird pictures of the side that you see all the time. Now picture that as a large, round tube. Completely airtight.
Yeah, that's what we were riding in.
"Look," Captain Know-it-all said, "I know it's kind of small, but the ride probably wont be more than ten minutes long, trust me."
"I call shotgun!" The Gasman shouted as he ran inside, the rest of the flock at his heels.
"That's not the point," I said after everyone had left. "I don't know if they told about this, but we don't do well in small, enclosed spaces. Hate 'em in fact. Besides," I pointed to the ship, "do you even know how The Gasman got his name?"
"I actually do know that about you," he said, "but if you know another way to survive unaided in hard vacuum in what's basically a galactic no-man's land, then I'm all ears."
I really hate it when people use facts. It really kills any chance I have of whining or ranking my way on people.
"Fine," I said, and slowly made my way into the wonder-ship. A few minutes later the ship was in front of the Stargate, waiting for the go-ahead to go through.
I still didn't feel to sure about going through that thing, but hey, whatever was on the other side of that thing has to be safer than where we are now, right?
Oh, and note to self, come up with repertoire of aliases. Soon.
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Author's Note; I'm sorry if the descriptions of SG-1 (and Vala. Mid season 9) paint a slightly less then attractive picture of them, but they are being veiwed through the rose colored window that is called Max. So don't hold that against me, I actually hold SG-1 in very high regard.